Get Cynical

From this Flickr set.

(via Apartment Therapy)

Your PSA for the night.

(via Everything is Terrible)

From The Smoking Gun:

In what we promise will be the final installment of the ShamWow Chronicles, on the following pages you will find a selection of police evidence photos memorializing the recent bloody battle between TV pitchman Vince Shlomi and a Miami hooker. As you’ve likely heard, the ShamWow chieftain, 44, paid Sasha Harris $1000 for “straight sex,” which was to occur in Shlomi’s $750-a-night room at the lavish Setai hotel. But things went sideways when, according to an account Shlomi gave cops, he kissed the 26-year-old Harris, who responded by biting his tongue and not letting go. Shlomi then punched Harris several times until she released his tongue. He then went to the hotel’s lobby, where security called cops. A Miami Beach Police Department Crime Scene unit also arrived at the Setai to photograph the aftermath of the February 7 brawl, which left blood on the hotel room’s walls, floor, door, phone, bed, and towels. Cops were also dispatched to the Mount Sinai Medical Center to photograph Shlomi and Harris, who were being treated for their injuries (both were handcuffed to hospital beds since they had been arrested for felony battery).

From Reuters:

PALERMO (Reuters) – A Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-pilot.

The 2005 crash at sea off Sicily left survivors swimming for their lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that remained floating after the ATR turbo-prop aircraft splintered upon impact.

A fuel-gauge malfunction was partly to blame but prosecutors also said the pilot succumbed to panic, praying out loud instead of following emergency procedures and then opting to crash-land the plane instead trying to reach a nearby airport.

Another five employees of Tuninter, a subsidiary of Tunisair, were sentenced to between eight and nine years in jail by the court, in a verdict handed down Monday.

I heart Ebert:

Dear Bill: Thanks for including the Chicago Sun-Times on your exclusive list of newspapers on your “Hall of Shame.” To be in an O’Reilly Hall of Fame would be a cruel blow to any newspaper. It would place us in the favor of a man who turns red and starts screaming when anyone disagrees with him. My grade-school teacher, wise Sister Nathan, would have called in your parents and recommended counseling with Father Hogben.

Yes, the Sun-Times is liberal, having recently endorsed our first Democrat for President since LBJ. We were founded by Marshall Field one week before Pearl Harbor to provide a liberal voice in Chicago to counter the Tribune, which opposed an American war against Hitler. I’m sure you would have sided with the Trib at the time.

I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that “very few” readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, “many more complained about Nancy.” I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that “wow” was “mom” spelled upside-down.

Your column ran in our paper while it was owned by the right-wing polemicists Conrad Black (Baron Black of Coldharbour) and David Radler. We dropped it to save a little money after they looted the paper of millions. Now you call for an advertising boycott. It is unusual to observe a journalist cheering for a newspaper to fail. At present the Sun-Times has no bank debt, but labors under the weight of millions of dollars in tax penalties incurred by Lord Black, who is serving an eight-year stretch for mail fraud and obstruction of justice. We also had to pay for his legal expenses.

(via Classic TV Showbiz)

Janey asks: Are you afraid of clowns, and if yes, why?

I’m not afraid of clowns but I think all mimes should be punched repeatedly in the neck*. But I’m sure that’s not a minority opinion regarding mimes. So let’s hear it. Who is afraid of clowns?

*Please don’t punch mimes repeatedly in the neck. There’s no law against it per se** but the makeup might run onto your hands infecting you and turning you into a mime.

**Actually, that probably isn’t true***

***Well it could be true**** but I’m not a lawyer

****But it’s probably false*****

***** See***

Susan Powter shows you how to grocery shop.

(via Everything is Terrible)

From The Independent:

Her husband, Daniel, bought two properties. “We were drunk on Dubai,” she says. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to mismanage their finances. “We’re not talking huge sums, but he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was surprised. We got into a little bit of debt.” After a year, she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

One doctor told him he had a year to live; another said it was benign and he’d be okay. But the debts were growing. “Before I came here, I didn’t know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada’s or any other liberal democracy’s,” she says. Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can’t pay, you go to prison.

“When we realised that, I sat Daniel down and told him: listen, we need to get out of here. He knew he was guaranteed a pay-off when he resigned, so we said – right, let’s take the pay-off, clear the debt, and go.” So Daniel resigned – but he was given a lower pay-off than his contract suggested. The debt remained. As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren’t covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country.

“Suddenly our cards stopped working. We had nothing. We were thrown out of our apartment.” Karen can’t speak about what happened next for a long time; she is shaking.

Daniel was arrested and taken away on the day of their eviction. It was six days before she could talk to him. “He told me he was put in a cell with another debtor, a Sri Lankan guy who was only 27, who said he couldn’t face the shame to his family. Daniel woke up and the boy had swallowed razor-blades. He banged for help, but nobody came, and the boy died in front of him.”

Karen managed to beg from her friends for a few weeks, “but it was so humiliating. I’ve never lived like this. I worked in the fashion industry. I had my own shops. I’ve never…” She peters out.

Daniel was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment at a trial he couldn’t understand. It was in Arabic, and there was no translation. “Now I’m here illegally, too,” Karen says I’ve got no money, nothing. I have to last nine months until he’s out, somehow.” Looking away, almost paralysed with embarrassment, she asks if I could buy her a meal.

She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars.

“The thing you have to understand about Dubai is – nothing is what it seems,” Karen says at last. “Nothing. This isn’t a city, it’s a con-job. They lure you in telling you it’s one thing – a modern kind of place – but beneath the surface it’s a medieval dictatorship.”

One star Amazon reviews of classic movies, music and literature. Today we take a look at Moby-Dick:

His writing style and sentence structure are poor. It is hard to read. like work. Doubt he could get published today.

Reading Moby Dick was like torture- I would have rather been writing a 500 page report. At least I could have written it on something interesting. Moby Dick is a 500 page account of the same whale, the same people, the same trip, and the EXACT SAME THING over and over again. I recommend this book if you have an incrediably boring life to begin with that couldn’t get much worse and a lot of time on your hands.

tHIS BOOK IS BORING. iT TAKES A LONG TIME BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS……

This book is a must if you wanna lull yourself to sleep. The opening was great, but then all these horrendous allusions kept popping up. I mean: pages devoted to the act of just plain sleeping, and then more pages devoted to eating? I guess Melville should have decided if he wanted to write a book about hunting for whales or scientific stuff about them. Then the book would have been better.

Because it will put you to sleep. This has to be one of the most
BORING books I’ve ever attempted to read. I say “attempted”
because I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. Don’t listen to
the powers of established academia: this book really is dull. I think
that people say this book is so great because they’re afraid of having
an original thought. A thought like “this book is reallybad.” Yeah, the “symbolism” is so deep. As deep as
the sea. So deep that it makes me ask all the Big Questions of human
existence. And if you believe claptrap like that then there is
nothing I can do to dissuade you from reading this.

For readers of good fiction (Rushdie, Conrad, Steinbeck etc.) this outdated and outmoded novel is an arduous and pointless effort. There are many better books on sea adventure

This book is HORRIBLE! Classic, my eye! I would love to know what’s so great about this book. I have seen better writing in a Hallmark card! Boring! Give me a good ole copy of Elvis and Me! A true story that really tugs at your heart strings! I sleep with that one under my pillow! Keep Moby Dick away from my bed!

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